Jane Jacobs. in Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics, uses the approach and method of the Platonic dialogue to describe and differentiate between the morality (or amorality) of the worlds of business and politics. She writes that
I have not invented the two moral and value systems I shall expound. The human race has accomplished that feat during millennia of experience with trading and producing [commerce], on the one hand, and with organizing and managing territories [politics], on the other hand. I have merely . . . analyzed the probable origins and . . . reasons for it, and identified . . . functional and moral quagmires into which organizations . . . sink when they confuse their own . . . moral system with the other (xii).
However, the author by no means aims merely to describe these moral systems objectively. To the contrary, the purpose of her book is to help instill in politics and commerce more moral considerations. She points out the moral dilemmas and ambiguities of public life as opposed to private, and asks, "Does this mean
. . . that we can be 'good' only in our private lives and that moral behavior must bend or break when e participate in the world's work?" And her answer is, "No, that demoralizing notion is nonsense." She says that "clear rules" inform us as to the moral choices we should make when confronted with moral dilemmas in business and politics. Her book is meant to describe those rules and urge us to make moral choices according to those clear rules.
Then again, true to her dedication to the reality of the situation, she has her characters admit that the hope for establishing a more moral public world is a slim one. She has a character acknowledge at least that some thinkers assume
that many people---perhaps most people---given the choice and chance, prefer not to be corrupt and dislike seeing their organizations and society go rotten. The alter...